Silent Night, Holy Night
by Ishafel
Summary: Christmas at the CamPound, and all is not well. Set in December 2002. Added final chapter.
1. A Hazy Shade of Winter

**The characters?  Property of the WB.  The story? Copyrighted by Ishafel 4/29/2002.**

**Rated R for violence, drug use and adult themes.  If you're the kind of person who believes that fanfiction should consist solely of tributes to 7th Heaven because it is the most wonderful show ever, you might just want to stop reading here.**

**SILENT NIGHT, HOLY NIGHT**

Chapter One

December 23, Early Morning.  

Two days until Christmas, and Simon thought it might as well be two months.  It didn't feel like Christmas; it barely even felt like Saturday.  He couldn't even get excited about the idea of vacation—not when he'd be happier at school, away from his family.  Not when he'd be happier anywhere but home.  It was raining outside, so loudly that it almost drowned out the noise from his parents' latest fight.  It would never be loud enough, though.  He could hear his mother screaming, the voice she had once reserved for groundings and deaths but now used regularly on his father.  Shivering, Simon pulled the blankets over his head.

Robbie and Matt were awake too, carefully not looking at each other as they listened to Matt's parents scream.  Robbie had survived his own parents' split, and he would survive this too.  He wasn't so sure about Matt and the kids.  He knew how much all this hurt, and for kids so attached to family…it was going to be tough.  One of the twins in the bedroom next door started to cry, no doubt frightened by his parents' rage.  With a sigh, Robbie slid out of bed.  In the hallway, the screaming was deafening.  He could tell they were fighting about either Mary or Matt again.  Sometimes he wondered if they even remembered their other kids.  Quickly, he gathered the twins, picking up the sobbing Sam and taking David by the hand.  David never cried anymore.  He hardly even talked.  Briefly, Robbie wondered how Simon, whose bedroom was between the twins' and his own, could sleep through the noise.  He could hear Ruthie creeping down the stairs already.

Ruthie waited until Robbie had gotten the twins and gone back to the Hello Kitty sanctuary before she knocked on the door.  Matt answered it, since Robbie was still trying to comfort Sam.  "Can I come in?" Ruthie asked, shy despite the fact that she was following the established ritual.  Matt nodded.  He didn't talk much anymore either.  Silently the five of them huddled on Robbie's bed, drawing what comfort they could from each other.  

Lucy had heard Ruthie leaving, and she almost followed, knowing that Simon would be glad of her company.  But Lucy had her own source of comfort now.  Moving as quietly as the others down the stairs from the attic, she slipped into the bathroom and locked the door.  She had hidden a small, very sharp kitchen knife behind the spare toilet paper under the bathroom sink a few days ago.  She drew it out now, carefully not looking at it, and without giving herself time to think about it made four shallow stripes on the inside of her left arm just above the elbow.  

At first Lucy felt nothing.  When the cuts began to burn she pressed a wad of toilet paper to them, careful not to smear the four neat parallel lines she had made.  For a moment her arm hurt enormously, but the pain allowed her to look in the mirror.  She was happy to see that she was still alive, still Lucy.  Sometimes when her parents fought this way she wondered if she was invisible, a blob-like presence defined only by the neat series of scars that marked her upper arms.  Finally she taped gauze carefully over the new cuts, shrugged on her bathrobe, rinsed the knife off and put it away.  Today she and Simon were going to go to the mall to finish Christmas shopping and take the twins to visit Santa.  All she wanted for Christmas was for all this to stop.

December 23, Mid-Morning

            The Camden kids had their routine down to an exact science now.  After two months of war, they were well-drilled soldiers.  Robbie or Matt dressed the twins while Lucy and Ruthie got ready.  The girls made breakfast and fed Sam and David while the Robbie and Matt dressed, dragged Simon out of bed, and tidied up the bedrooms and bathroom.  Most mornings they managed it without speaking a word or attracting their parents' attention.  Today was more challenging than usual; it was Saturday, which meant, potentially, that both their parents could come home at any time, and Christmas break, so there was nowhere to go until the mall opened, and Mary was coming home so Eric was in a particularly bad mood.  Still, they had managed to get everyone fed and the upstairs tidied reasonably quickly.  There was a note from Annie on the counter; she'd gone to the store for supplies for a homecoming dinner Mary wouldn't eat.  There was no note from Eric but his breakfast dishes were in the sink.  Clearly he had waited for Annie to leave before eating alone and sneaking out.  With luck they could do the same.  Robbie and Matt had to work and Ruthie was going to meet friends for the first time in months.  They all felt quietly elated as they headed for the door.   Simon even gave Sam and David horsey rides as Lucy backed the car out of the garage. 

            As Matt helped to put the twins into their car seats he thought of Sarah, his wife, in New York finishing medical school.  If he had only had the nerve to stand up to his parents, he might have been with her.  They might have had children of their own by now.  Surely that had been a dream worth fighting for?  Surely there was more to life than this dark and desperate exile, than being forced to watch his family self-destruct.

December 23, Afternoon

They had all agreed to meet at the eatery in the mall for a late lunch, and looking around the table at her family Lucy was happy for the first time in months.  Simon was smiling, and Ruthie seemed to have lost thirty years in a few hours.  The twins were still whispering to each other about Santa.  She could feel the cuts on her arm but for once they meant nothing.

"Check out what I got Mary for Christmas," Simon said suddenly.  He dug through the pile of shopping bags at his feet and pulled out one from Baby GAP.  The tiny outfit was one of the most adorable things Lucy had ever seen, and she was torn between horror at her brother's nerve and envy that Mary, of all people, was going to be a mother soon.  

Ruthie had no mixed emotions to keep her from speaking.  "You shouldn't encourage her," she told Simon severely.  "Mary only got pregnant because she was jealous Mom and Dad were paying too much attention to Matt.  Personally I think she made it up, so she'd have an excuse to quit flight attendant training and throw up full time.

"She does that anyway—quit, I mean," Simon pointed out.  "Mom and Dad didn't want to deal with it, so they pawned her off on the Colonel.  And Mary could never lie about anything successfully for more than three hours.  She's going to have a baby, and it's time this family faced it.  I thought I might as well get her something she could use."

For Lucy, some of the pleasure had gone out of the afternoon.  Mary's fall from grace had been hard on them all.  Only Mary had survived unchanged.  She couldn't imagine doing something like that—couldn't imagine risking her parents' love.  But that had always been the difference between Lucy and Mary.  Things came so easily to her sister that she didn't mind throwing them away.  She hated the fact that Mary's mistakes had touched Simon and Ruthie and the twins, too.  It was as though Annie and Eric simply didn't have enough love or attention to go around anymore.  They were so focused on healing their older children's wounds—Matt's failed career and marriage, Mary's terminal lack of direction, and now her pregnancy—that they wouldn't have noticed if the others really had disappeared.  

            Ruthie had noticed Lucy's abstraction.  She watched worriedly as her older sister lost her smile and began to stare fixedly at the wall behind the Pizza Express.  Once it might have been a cute boy or a good book that caught Lucy's eye; now it was clear she was thinking about their family whenever her expression changed.  They had all of them made sacrifices of a sort to hold the family together.  Ruthie had given up her friends, Simon his hopes of popularity, Robbie his education, and Matt his chances of reconciliation with Sarah.  But Lucy had given up her life, and now she more than any of them seemed to be slipping away.  

            Ruthie knew Lucy's secret.  She knew all their secrets, from Simon's smoking to the lump on Annie's breast that her mother refused to have treated.  She knew Matt had given up a second chance in New York because he was afraid to leave his brothers and sisters in their parents' house unsupervised, and that her father had said something to Robbie that made Robbie avoid being alone with him.  She knew that Sam and David rarely spoke English, but that they had a complex secret language—and though they applied the word for mother frequently to Ruthie and Lucy, they had no names for their parents.  And she knew exactly who it was that had fathered the child Mary was half embarrassed, half proud to bear.  Ruthie knew everything, and she knew that nothing could save her family now.


	2. The Dangling Conversation

The characters? Property of the WB. The story? Copyrighted by Ishafel 4/29/2002.

Rated R for violence, drug use and adult themes. If you're the kind of person who believes that fanfiction should consist solely of tributes to 7th Heaven because it is the most wonderful show ever, you might just want to stop reading here.

SILENT NIGHT, HOLY NIGHT

Chapter Two

December 23, Evening

They were late, Simon knew, and there was going to be trouble. It was partly his fault; he had made no effort to warn the girls, hadn't helped Ruthie calm Lucy when their older sister panicked. Simon just didn't care. It was funny–he had always thought of himself as the sensitive one, easily cowed. Matt and Lucy were the ones who stood up for their beliefs, who ran into burning buildings and held the hands of starving lepers. But Simon was the only one who could stand up to their parents. Mary defied them, and Robbie had developed a slippery way of getting around Eric, but only Simon dared look them in the eyes these days. 

Ruthie guarded the family's secrets carefully, but there was one that wasn't hers to keep. While his sisters slunk into the house with the twins, Simon carried the shopping bags into the garage and up the stairs to the attic. He had at most five minutes, and he quickly lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. All his parents' lectures, all the commercials about the evils of nicotine, came to nothing compared to that first drag of smoke after a long day. He sometimes wondered if even alcohol could taste this good, if this was the feeling his father got when he drank, and if so why he was still so angry. Time was almost up. Quickly Simon stubbed out his cigarette, hid the butt in the hole he had made in the plywood and sprayed air freshener on himself and the bags. He didn't want the girls to know he'd been smoking; he'd promised Ruthie a long time ago that he would strive to be a good man, and despite everything he meant to try. 

Ruthie and Lucy had no time to think about Simon. As soon as they'd come in, they'd been pressed into service, getting everything ready for Mary. Their mother hadn't even noticed the time, or wondered where they'd all been. Of course, Annie had been busy finding a tree, baking cookies, and putting up all of the Christmas decorations she usually took weeks to prepare. It was no real surprise she hadn't had time to strip Ruthie's bed and make it up again for Mary, or put her older daughter's clothing back into the dresser Lucy now used. The only surprise was how little the house felt like Christmas, even covered in holly and red and green ribbon and smelling of vanilla and gingerbread. There was something empty about it, empty and hollow as the heart of the Camden family.

Eric's car was missing, so he probably wasn't home yet. Robbie sighed with relief as he opened the front door, Matt at his heels. It had been a long day at the construction site where they both worked, and he didn't want to deal with the Reverend's too-frequent stares, awkward pauses, and convenient touches, or Annie's rage at what she saw as a deliberate betrayal. The house looked good, almost too good; the stockings hanging from the mantel were at measured distances, the magazines on the coffee table had been fanned out in perfect formation, and even the tree looked as if Annie had trimmed it according to a blueprint. 

Carefully avoiding the pristine rug Robbie and Matt crept toward the stairs, but they weren't quiet enough. Annie, immaculately clad in a starched apron, shot out of the kitchen clutching a wooden spoon. Matt, flanking Robbie, thought that she resembled a general, bayonet in hand, leading a charge. He knew it was important not to move too suddenly, but it was an effort to remain standing firm in the face of whatever drove his mother. They all pretended not to know abut her illness; each blamed the changes in her personality on the tumor in her breast she thought was a secret, but this close to Annie it was clear that there was more wrong than cancer. She was tearing herself apart and even death might be merciful. "You're late," she told them sharply.

"It's okay, Mrs. Camden, really," Robbie said softly. He reached out and gently took the spoon from her. "What are you cooking? It smells delicious, and I'm sure Mary will love it."

Suddenly Annie's face crumpled. "She's late, too," she gulped. "Mary's late, and Eric's late, and now everything will be ruined."

Matt couldn't bear to see his mother cry, especially now, knowing how sick she was. "They'll be here," he lied. "Mary's flight from New York was delayed, is all. I'm going to go upstairs and change, and then I'll go to the airport and pick her up. I'll take Simon and Ruthie with me; they'll like that. And on the way there we'll stop and remind Dad about dinner. He's probably just caught up in a counseling session–you know how he gets." 

"Oh, Matt, I love you so much," his mother sobbed, throwing her arms around him. "You always make everything all right."

"I love you too, Mom," Matt said heavily. He started up the stairs and after a moment Robbie followed silently. Near the top he stopped and turned back. Annie was wiping her eyes on her apron, grief and confusion gone as if they had never been. And perhaps they hadn't. Perhaps they were as much a lie as everything else in Glenoak.

"What are you going to do now?" Robbie asked Matt. "Do you think Mary's really at the airport?"

"I don't know for sure," Matt sighed. "But I imagine she's at Wilson's. She couldn't pay the rent on the Buffalo apartment anymore so I think she's been staying with him and Billy. She has this crazy idea that Mom and Dad are redoing the garage apartment for her and the baby, and that that will be their Christmas present to her."

Robbie laughed. "I'm surprised your mom's even letting her in the house. It's driving them crazy not knowing whose baby she's carrying." 

"Yeah." Matt still wasn't entirely sure the baby wasn't Robbie's. It ate at him, living with the guy day after day, not knowing. He owed Robbie a debt he could never repay, and not trusting him hurt. "Look, I'd better grab a jacket and get going. Can you hold the fort down, do you think?"

"Sure," Robbie answered. "Lucy and I'll get the twins ready for bed and read them Christmas stories, you focus on rounding up the missing sheep." 

Matt entered Simon's room without knocking, taking his brother by surprise. Simon was lying on his bed, writing in what looked suspiciously like a journal–a bad move in the Camden house, where privacy was an endangered species at best. There was no fear or embarrassment in Simon's expression, though. He looked angry, and a little bit dangerous. Matt's little brother had become a man in his absence, and not a man Matt always liked.

Now he erupted. "Jesus Christ, Matt. Annie and Eric are bad enough, without you starting. Get out, and next time knock before you come in." 

Shocked, Matt replied without thinking. "Watch your language, Simon! Just because Dad's not around much anymore doesn't mean you can't be respectful."

Simon stood up slowly, his eyebrows lowering. He had grown during the two months Matt had spent in New York. Grown and developed. He was as big as Matt, and probably twenty pounds heavier. For the first time ever, Matt backed down from his little brother. He told himself that it was because there wasn't time to fight, but in his heart he wondered how he would have settled things if he hadn't been in such a hurry. Without another word to Simon, he turned and left the room. 

Ruthie, scrambling down the attic stairs, caught Matt just outside Simon's door. "Are you going to the airport now?" she demanded. "Can I come with you? I really need to talk to you."

"Sure," Matt said wearily. "I was just coming to ask if you were up for a drive." 

Sitting next to her brother in the car, Ruthie stared out the window. "Where do you think it all went wrong, Matt?" she asked. 

He sighed. "Oh Ruthie, I don't know. Why would you even ask that?"

"Because I'm taking a survey!" she sniped. "I'm asking because I want to know. Isn't it about time someone asked questions?"

Matt thought about it for a minute. "I guess it went wrong for Dad when I married Sarah–it shook his faith in God, and God was all he had. I think for Mom it was a little later, when she found the lump–well, I'm sure you know. Sometimes a marriage just isn't enough to hold to people together, Ruthie. It stops being a boundary and becomes a wall. Mom and Dad weren't strong enough to break down that wall, so they turned on each other. And they don't believe in divorce, so now they're really and truly trapped. Until Mom dies or Dad implodes, anyway."

"Is that what happened to you and Sarah, too?"

"No," Matt answered sadly. "I just wasn't good enough for Sarah. I wasn't strong enough or smart enough for her. Being in New York for me was like being lost in the desert, wandering. She wanted me to give up my family and my God, and I couldn't do it. Not for all the love in the world."

"Hey," Ruthie said softly. "We're almost to the church. You pull in and I'll run and talk to Dad. He's more likely to listen to me, anyway."

"Thanks," Matt smiled. "You're all right sometimes, Ruthie."

His youngest sister was pleased to see him happy for the first time in weeks. "I'm better than all right, Matt Camden," she said. "And don't you forget it."

Ruthie hurried toward her father's office, a little worried about what she might see. Some days her father was better than others. Some days he was too much alone, and without God to keep him company, he had developed some new bad habits. Simon had said, rather accurately if unkindly, that Eric had replaced Jesus Christ with Jack Daniels. Tonight, though, her father didn't look drunk. He was sitting at his desk, staring down at a sheet of paper. As Ruthie moved closer, she saw that his right hand was folded carefully around the butt of a gun. Quietly, she backed out of the room, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

"He said he'd think about it," Ruthie told Matt perkily, climbing back into the car. "Now let's pick up Mary."

"Great," Matt said. "Uh–do you know where she is?"

"Try the police station," Ruthie answered, flipping her hair up into a twist and looking at herself in the rearview mirror. "Do you think I'm pretty, Matt?"

Matt stared at her. "Sure, Ruthie, you're very pretty. Why the police station?"

Ruthie laughed. "So you really don't know?" 

"Know what?"

"It's Sergeant Michaels. Sergeant Michaels is her new "beau." You knew that though, right? Please tell me you knew that!"

Slowing the car almost to a stop, Matt turned to her. "You're serious. Michaels is the father of her baby?"

"I'm not positive," Ruthie responded, biting her bottom lip. "But, Matt–I'm pretty sure. She's always had this, well, this thing about men in authority. Soldiers, ministers, firemen, pilots, cops. And you know how the sergeant and Dad had a fight, right? It was while you were in New York. I think Sergeant Michaels was sick of Dad interfering, and with Mary throwing herself at him, I guess he saw an opportunity and he took it. Don't be mad, Matt. He's planning on marrying her as soon as his divorce is final."

"So she's done this before?" Matt asked painfully.

Ruthie nodded. "I guess her luck just ran out, this time around."

"This'll kill Dad, finding out," Matt said softly.

For a long time Ruthie didn't answer. Matt had turned around and was driving back toward the police house before she breathed, "Yeah."

In his office at the church, Eric Camden finished the note he was writing to his children and stared blankly at a poster on the wall. It showed a strip of white sand, marred only by a single wavering line of footprints. Once there had been two sets. He put the gun in his mouth and squeezed the trigger gently, just as the Colonel had taught him long ago. 

Lucy and Robbie were reading The Night Before Christmas to the twins, smiling as Sam and David laughed and clapped. Without warning the door burst open. Annie stood in the doorway. "You're being too loud," she said, almost conversationally. "And you shouldn't be sitting on the bed together like that. You aren't married, you know. Fornication is a sin." As abruptly as she had come she was gone. 

Lucy stared at the empty doorframe, her eyes filling with tears. "She wasn't always like this," she sniffled. "It's the cancer. It must have gotten to her brain."

Robbie pressed a soft kiss on her palm. "It'll be okay, Luce. Someday it'll all be okay again." 

"Be okay," David echoed, but from him it sounded more like a prayer than a declaration.


	3. The Sound of Silence

**The characters?  Property of the WB.  The story? Copyrighted by Ishafel 4/29/2002.**

**Rated R for violence (mostly implied), drug use (ditto) and adult themes (okay 1/3—not bad).  Oh, and I forgot to say it before, but apologies to Simon & Garfunkel for borrowing their song titles for my story and chapter titles, and thereby associating them with both the awful show and my awful story.**

SILENT NIGHT, HOLY NIGHT

Chapter Three

December 24, Late Morning

            Simon woke to sunlight, streaming in, and wondered why.  The house was quiet, not ominously so, but peaceful, with all the morning noises of a family.  It had the feel of a great rough beast at rest at last.  It must be Eric's absence that made it so.  The dinner last night—Mary's welcome home party—had gone on forever, Matt sitting in their father's chair and trying to fill it.  And Annie hadn't seemed to care that it was her oldest son and not her husband sitting across from her.  The look on her face had been one Simon had not seen in a long time.  He had almost forgotten she could wear it.  At that table, at the meal that felt like a wake for their world, Annie had been happy.  She was far too thin, her hair brittle, her skin pale.  She was glowing, and Mary, at her right hand, glowed as well.

            She was three months pregnant—Mary—and she had never been prettier.  She had gained weight and her face and body were pleasantly rounded.  For once she wore a plain, baggy man's shirt and loose jeans.  Simon and Lucy and Matt had all stared at her, jealous.  It was plain to them that Mary was in love, and loved.  For once, nothing they did or said could hurt her.  Not even her father's absence fazed her, and she had looked through Robbie as if he wasn't there.  Mary, whatever else she was, whatever she had done, had found happiness.  She wouldn't be back, Simon thought cynically, but he didn't mind.  He had never liked her, partly because of the way she looked down on him, partly for Lucy's sake.  Though he wasn't sorry to see her go, he found that he wished her well, his simple, beautiful sister who had never wanted anything but approval, and who had finally found it.

            Simon stood up and pulled on his jeans.  He needed to go out to the garage and check on his secret, and he was dying for a cigarette.  If Eric weren't back, then he would have only Matt and Lucy to avoid.  Ruthie knew he smoked and Annie was too far gone to care.  Smoking had begun as a cover, a vice that was bad enough in its own right to provide him with a reason to hide.  If they ever knew what he was really hiding… he would never use it, of course; that would be wrong.  Just knowing that it was there was enough.

            Sullenly, Lucy washed another plate and handed it to Robbie to dry.  She hated doing dishes, particularly dishes from Mary's welcome home parties.  She hated her family; she hated Robbie, cheerful as he was.  She hated her father, who hadn't bothered to come home at all.  She hated herself most of all.  She never cut herself two days in succession; she seldom did it twice in one week.  Today she thought she might break all those rules, especially if Robbie didn't stop whistling soon.  All her life she'd competed with Mary, and last night she'd lost.  Game, set, and match.  Battle and war.

            When Robbie stopped, she glanced over at him.  He seemed to think that was a good sign, that maybe now she would be amenable to reason.  "We need to do something about Annie, Luce.  She can't go on like this."  He took the last plate carefully from her hands, dried it, and added it to the stack.  Lucy hoped Mary had appreciated the good china.  They probably wouldn't be using it again any time soon.  She sighed, and answered Robbie.

            "I think it mostly comes down to where Dad is.  It's not like him to stay out all night, but I can't imagine he'd just turn away from us, with no word.  And of course it's not only up to me.  The others should have a say in it, too.  But Dad and I talked about this when he first found Mom's test results, as soon as we knew it was too late for anything medical to help.  I think that even he realized that prayer wasn't going to solve this.  There's a hospice outside Glenoak, and it's pretty nice.  A church runs it, too; the minister there is a friend of Dad's.  They promised they'd make room for whenever she needed to come.  But, Robbie, can't she be home for Christmas, at least?  She was so happy last night; I want the twins to be able to remember her like that.  This is all they'll ever have of her."

            Robbie smiled at her, warm but sad.  For him, this was like losing his mother all over again.  She couldn't imagine having to go through it twice.  She wasn't so sure she'd make it once.  "This hasn't been said enough, Robbie, and maybe it can't be said enough.  Thank you.  For everything you've done for us.  You've been like a brother, better than a brother, even.  I know that you and Matt between you have been covering the expenses.  We never would have survived without you."  For a second, Robbie's control slipped and he looked as if he'd been slapped.  She reached out to touch his face and he jerked away.  She started to ask what was wrong but just then Simon blew through the kitchen, Robbie turned to watch him pass, and the moment was gone as if it had never been.  Lucy was left feeling that something vast and momentous had happened and that somehow she'd missed it.  Biting her lip, she too turned away.   

            In the garage apartment Simon lit a cigarette with fingers that trembled.  It was gone, the gun he'd carefully hidden beneath a loose floorboard.  Looking back, he remembered that he hadn't had time to check it the day before; it might have been missing for days or hours. He doubted Annie had it; she hadn't been out here in nearly a year. Lucy, Matt, and Robbie all seemed unlikely. Ruthie would have attempted blackmail immediately. The only one missing was his father. Simon dismissed the thought as if it had never been. Time enough to worry when they questioned him. Silence had always been his favorite way of dealing with his family and he thought it might well be successful here. Let Ruthie take the blame, or Lucy; his sisters had less to lose at any rate.  
  
          That morning no one tried to wake Ruthie up. She lay on the floor behind the couch in the living room, in the dark little cave that had become her favorite hiding place, and for once there was no yelling and no tears. No one came looking for Ruthie, not to make her dress the twins, or vacuum or dust or entertain her oldest sister. No one worried that she hadn't brushed her teeth, or that she was ruining her eyes reading by flashlight, or wondered if she'd like pancakes for breakfast. No one asked her if she knew why their father wasn't home.  

That gave Ruthie plenty of time to think. She hoped that when her parents died they'd all stay together but what if they didn't? What if Lucy and Robbie got married and didn't want her around anymore? What if she and Simon were sent to foster homes? What if they all learned what she'd done, and hated her for it? She sniffled, feeling sorry for herself  
and knowing it was all her own fault. Now, when it was probably too late, she remembered visiting Disneyland, and how her father had carried her on his shoulders when she was tired. She remembered overhearing him tell the Colonel that little Ruthie had was smart as well as sensible. She remembered him tucking her in, singing to her, smiling down at her as she  
struggled to keep her eyes open. For the first time she wondered if what she'd done had been right.  
  
         Matt unfolded the papers his boss had given to him the night before and stared at them for the thousandth time. The construction business he worked for wanted to pay him to train as a contractor. It was a fantastic opportunity; it would more than double his salary, and give him a chance to use his education. It was absolutely terrifying, because it meant selling out on his dreams. A small part of him wondered if it was giving up on his future he really feared—or the thought that in giving up medical school forever he was losing Sarah forever.  She had never been meant to be a contractor's wife, to live in Glenoak and help him raise his parents' children.  He didn't think she would stand it for long.

Shoving the papers back in his pocket, Matt wondered downstairs.  Mary was standing in the hall, staring blankly at the Christmas tree.  Matt had to admit it bore staring at.  Clearly Annie had spent an enormous amount of time arranging it, but there seemed to be something missing.  He missed the trees of the past, the ones that listed slightly to one side, that were too tall or too bushy, the ones that looked like they'd been decorated by a battalion of midgets in hurricane-force winds.  Even the ornaments on this tree were new, as if Annie had carefully replaced their family's troubled history one ornament at a time.

Passing Mary, he went into the kitchen.  Lucy and Robbie were standing by the sink, obviously not looking at each other.  Matt sighed.  "Where's Dad?" he asked.

"Gone, I think." Lucy said softly.  "Gone."

"Where?  What do you mean?"

"He told me once—a long time ago, just after his heart attack—that he hated things that drag on—long illnesses, broken marriages.  He said that when things are over, when God means them to be over, they should just end.  No fanfare, or tears, or time lost.  I think he knows that this is over, and he's moved on."

  
            Even Robbie looked startled.  "Luce, what do you mean by moved on?"

Lucy blinked, clearly far away and not only in time.  "For him, it would be like waking from a dream, Matt.  All he's ever had is his faith, really.  His faith and Mom, because I think he loved her in his way.  Take those away, and…some people are strong in themselves.  They can get past these things.  Dad's never been strong; he's like me, he gives way under pressure, lets go of what he believes in.  He woke up and the world had changed without him.  I think he's done something to himself."

"Suicide?" Matt snapped, incredulous.  "Dad wouldn't do something like that.  People who "do things" to themselves go to hell, Lucy.  Dad would never do anything to risk that.  He's having a crisis, is all.  He'll get past this."

His sister blinked back at him, her eyes full of tears.  She pulled off the loose sweater she was wearing over a tank top, and turned the underside of her arms up to the light.  Matt gasped and Robbie, behind him, gagged a little.  Her arms were striped with scars and raw cuts.  They were too evenly done to be anything but self-inflicted, too plainly what they were to be anything else.  There was something of Annie in Lucy after all; Matt wondered giddily if she had found the instructions for cutting in a textbook.  

"Lucy," he said numbly.  "Lucy, why?"

"It's easy to get lost," said the little sister he loved but had never understood.  "And we all have our own ways of marking paths.  But I think that maybe Dad gave up hope as well as faith, and that way lies destruction."

"I can't talk to you now," Matt told her.  "I need time to think, and I'm going for a drive.  I'll be home at dinnertime, and so will Dad, and we'll find a way to help you.  I love you, Lucy, but right now I can't even look at you."

"Matt, wait…" Lucy started.  And to his back, finished.  "Wait for me.  Please."  But Matt was gone.  Lately they all walked away, just so.  As if answers were their greatest fear.  As if the truth were a weapon.


	4. Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall

****

The characters? Property of the WB. The story? Copyrighted by Ishafel 4/29/2002.

Rated R for violence, drug use and adult themes. This is the end of this particular story, and although the characters, Lucy in particular, have not always behaved as I intended, I've come to like them. Thank you for reading.

****

SILENT NIGHT, HOLY NIGHT

Chapter Four

"Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall"

December 24

Early Evening

Truth is a weapon. Truth is a dagger, drawn. Truth is a row of cuts just deep enough to scar, a record of pain that is and has always been meaningless. The truth is that no one has ever loved Lucy best, or ever will. She is no one's favorite child; has no beauty, no ambition, and no great brain. She cannot blame Matt for hating her, Robbie for being sickened, their mother for dying, her father for leaving. Simon pities her and Ruthie despises her, and in the end they are right, because she has failed them all. 

In the kitchen Lucy cooked, because that was all that she could think of to do. Matt and Robbie had gone to look for her father and had not come back. Simon and Ruthie had simply disappeared. Her mother was weaker today, as if all her carefully hoarded strength had left her in the night. From the living room she could hear laughter, faintly, and more strongly the noise of the television. Mary was watching Christmas movies with the twins.

Sharp objects held no fear for Lucy and she peeled the potatoes recklessly. She never cut herself by accident anyway. The important thing was to have dinner on the table when the others got home, so that there would be no time for talking. The important thing was that it was Christmas Eve. She flipped the radio on, hoping for Christmas music, but the opening chords of "Silent Night" were meant only as a background to the news.

__

This is the early evening edition of the news, live from Glenoak, California.

Another suicide bomber has struck a crowded restaurant in Tel Aviv, Israel. Twelve civilians, three of them children, are dead. Israeli officials have vowed to retaliate.

Vice President Cheney has admitted to being involved in the Enron coverup scheme, but argues that his secrecy was for the good of the country.

A man was found allegedly dead at his own hand today in a church in Glenoak. We have been asked to withhold his name until his family is notified. Police are investigating.

Local unemployment rates are skyrocketing, up .9 percent this month despite the holiday season.

According to Glenoak police, hate crimes against homosexuals have increased recently following the spring's sharp drop. Police Sergeant Michaels attributes the rise to declining community interest in the issue.

A recent survey shows that smoking rates among teens have recently shot up despite anti-smoking campaigns.

Despite the recession, medical costs have continued to increase. Many families are now unable to provide long term patient care for cancer and terminal diseases. 

Crawford College has experienced a decline in enrollment and will be decreasing its faculty in an effort to cut costs.

From Glenoak's WB 7, that's the 5 o'clock edition of the news,

Goodnight, and Merry Christmas.

Silent night

Holy night

All is calm

All is bright

Round yon virgin mother and child

Holy infant so tender and mild

Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.

After "7 o'clock News/Silent Night" (P. Simon, 1966)

There seemed to be nothing left to do or say; it was as if Lucy's life had fallen apart a long time ago and looking back she knew that that was true. Glenoak had always seemed safe to her, as if her father's strength and love could keep out the world. But the world was here now, with all its danger and promise and glory and nothing, not Eric Camden, not the cuts on her arms, not even the gun Simon fondly imagined was his secret alone, could keep it at bay any longer. If her father was dead then the children were her responsibility, hers to love and support and discipline. It was up to Lucy now to keep her father's dreams alive; she had not made him happy in life and she could not disappoint him in death.

Confident now, she cleared the morning paper from the table, arranged the napkins just so, the silverware in its place. She knew that she could do this--play the perfect wife and mother for an audience that did not exist--if she could just keep from thinking. And if there was one thing Lucy was good at, it was avoiding thought. She would be everything Annie had not been, and if that was not what she had once imagined she would do with her life, well, it must be enough for her. The Bible said it was a woman's duty--

Lucy let the gravy boat drop, and did not notice when it shattered on the kitchen floor. What had duty ever done for her? They had no right, any of them, but least of all her father, to expect anything more of her simply because she was a woman. She would not live Annie's life, not if she could help it. 

When she looked up, Mary was standing framed in the kitchen doorway. "You dropped Mom's gravy boat?" she asked. "Boy, Lucy, she is not going to like that." She smirked a little, no doubt thinking of how Annie might react.

"I think she's beyond noticing," Lucy answered drearily. She grabbed her car keys from the counter, and her jacket from the hook.

"Where are you going?" Mary followed her out the door. "Isn't it almost time for dinner?"

"Out," Lucy said sharply. "And you can damn well stir the potatoes and take the chicken out of the oven yourself." She had forgotten her purse but there was $200 in her pocket, meant to buy the week's groceries, and her driver's license was clipped under the visor mirror. She could live without makeup for a little while, without the credit card her father had given her to make the family's purchases with. She could live without her family, if it came to that, and let duty do as it would.

"But" Mary started, clearly puzzled.

"I'm going out for ice cream," Lucy lied. "Merry Christmas, Mary Camden." She backed the car out of the garage much too fast, and and turned the radio up loud enough to ruin her hearing. She fumbled in the glove compartment for her sunglasses and turned out onto the main road without even looking. Even danger was more appealing to duty.

"Duty," Matt said, clearing his throat nervously. "It's my duty to tell them. I'm the eldest, and I'll do it." Robbie didn't say anything. He thought he might throw up again. He knew all about duty, or honor, or responsibility, whatever you called it. He had gone to see the body with Matt, had felt he'd had to. He would stay with the Camdens, help them do whatever was necessary, because he always did what was expected of him. He would walk away from Lucy without ever telling her the truth, because it wasn't fair to burden her with his unhappiness. Someday this would all be over, the twins old enough to go to college, and he would still be young enough to marry, start a family of his own, begin the whole thing all over again. Robbie knew all about doing what was right.

They pulled into the driveway. Only Annie's car was there, the one she was supposed to share with Simon but had never let him drive. That would all change, of course, when Annie was gone. Really, she shouldn't have been driving it either, not with the painkillers she took, but she went out so rarely none of them had bothered to fight about it. It seemed odd that Lucy was out, but maybe she had gone to get pizza for dinner. He swallowed uneasily, thinking of blood, and thanked Christ they had not had Ruthie with them. That made him remember that Ruthie would never see her father again; that the twins might well grow up calling him or Matt or Simon father. Although he had come to hate the Reverend and everything he stood for, the thought made him choke back a sob.

He got out of the car and looked back at Matt, who was still staring blankly straight ahead. "It'll be all right, chief," he said softly. "It was for the best." 

Matt stared up at him, eyes filled with tears. "You promise?" he asked, half seriously, and Robbie nodded before he could stop himself. "Okay, then."

The house smelled like burned potatoes. Mary stood beside the stove, looking both guilty and a little lost. "She said to stir them," she whined, "but it isn't helping anymore."

Robbie reached over shoulder for the oven controls. "You have to turn them off, eventually. I think they're more than done." Mary blinked and he suddenly regretted his sarcasm. "It's okay, logical mistake, anyone could have made it," he told her firmly, and she rewarded him with a tremulous smile.

"Not anyone," she responded, a little sadly. "Sometimes I'm not very smart, am I?"

No kidding, Robbie thought, but he reassured her anyway. It wasn't her fault, not really, that her little girl voice and fluttering eyelashes annoyed him. It wasn't her fault she was what she was; that blame could be put squarely on heredity. It had always amused him a little, as well as disgusted him, that Mary the favored child had so little self-confidence that she sought approval anywhere she could get it. Her parents would have walked through fire for her but they had not been able to bring themselves to be kind.

"I'm going upstairs to change," he said, changing the subject. "I think we can just throw that pan out and pretend it never happened. It looks like that chicken's about done and there's probably some frozen vegetables. They're really easy to make."

"I'm sure I can do it!" Mary answered, with an enthusiasm wholly out of porportion for frozen vegetables. Idiot, he almost said, even the twins could do it, and realizing how unkind that would have been, went upstairs, a silent Matt on his heels.

"I'm going to take a shower," he informed Matt. "I'll be quick, though. Why don't you tell Simon and Ruthie dinner is almost ready, and ask them to get the twins ready?" He ducked into the bathroom before Matt could answer him, glad to finally be alone.

Matt knocked on Simon's door, glad to have orders to follow. Simon answered it, looking angry once again. "What do you want?" he demanded.

"Dinner is in ten minutes," Matt replied.

"I'm not hungry," Simon snarled, and started to slam the door.

Matt blocked it with his foot. "Tough. You need to be there. We need to have a family meeting." When Simon didn't respond, he turned to go.

His brother's voice, less nasty than usual, stopped him. "Matt?"

He looked over his shoulder. "Yes?"

"You haven't been in the garage apartment, have you? I mean, I hid all my Christmas presents there" Simon's voice trailed off.

Puzzled by Simon's urgency, Matt shook his head.

"Good," Simon snapped, but he still seemed worried. Before Matt could question him, though, he had shut the door and Matt let it go. 

At the foot of the attic steps, he called, "Ruthie?" His voice echoed oddly but she didn't answer. "Ruthie?" he called, louder. 

A muffled voice responded from the first floor and he went wearily down into the living room. The twins were watching a Rudolph cartoon, one his father would have despised, but he ignored it. Ruthie was nowhere to be seen. 

"Where's your sister?" he asked Sam, but his brother ignored him, mesmerized by claymation Rudolph.

"I'm here," a distorted voice answered from behind the couch. Ruthie stood up, her face smeared with dust and swollen from crying. She knows, Matt thought, horrified. How does she always know? "Hey, Ruthie," he began gently.

"Don't call me Ruthie anymore," his baby sister said flatly. "Robbie, Ruthie, Lucy, Annie, Mary, all of our names sound alike and I hate it. Call me Ruth." 

"Are you crying because you don't like your name?" Matt was mystified.

"Leave me alone!" Ruthie bolted past him and he sighed and sat down, exhausted.

"Dinner," Mary yelled. "Hurry or it'll be ruined!" 

Simon clattered down the stairs, followed by Robbie, hastily pulling on his shirt, and Ruthie who had clearly just splashed water on her face.

They all sat quietly at the dining room table. Simon eyed them suspiciously. Mary was too dumb, Matt never lied, Ruthie was absorbed in something else, Robbie wouldn't have bothered, the twins were too young and his mother too weak. Where Lucy was, seemed to be anyone's guess. The chicken was so dry as to be almost inedible, the peas still half frozen, the cranberry sauce still in the can. Mary was no housewife; he pitied the baby she carried. No one else seemed to have noticed that dinner was ruined. Matt and Robbie eyed each other and swallowed convulsively, and neither of them touched their food. The twins and Mary ate hungrily, and Ruthie sulked as hard as Simon ever had.

When the phone rang they all dived for it, and Simon, who was most alert, won. "It's Seargant Michaels," he announced, and Mary blushed with happiness. It was clear, now, who the man in her life must be. "He wants to talk to you, Matt," he relayed, and Mary paled. "He says it's because you're the man of the family." Into the phone, he said, loudly, "So, Seargant, my sister is smart enough for you to fuck, and smart enough to carry your baby, but not smart enough to talk to?" That it was true just made the whole thing more interesting.

Matt sat as if frozen but Robbie rose to meet him. "Sit down, Simon," he said, and there was a cold, hard weight to his voice that made Simon obey. He took the phone and turned away, and they all stared after him. He listened to whatever Seargant Michaels had to say, thanked him, and hung up. Matt pushed his plate away and put his head down on forearms. Robbie moved to stand behind him, putting one hand on his shoulder in a forlorn hope to comfort. "There's something you all need to know," he began. "It's going to be hard to hear and harder to live with. And I'm sorry to have be the one to tell you, but I think you should hear it from someone who loves you like a brother." Mary and the twins looked up at him, bright and curious, but Simon and Ruthie stared at their plates. "Simon, could you take Sam and David into the living room, please?" 

When Simon had returned Robbie took a deep breath, and destroyed the remains of the Camdens' childhood forever. "Last night," he said and Ruthie gulped. "Last night, your father sat down at his desk and wrote you all a letter. Seargant Michaels let us make copies of it, and I'm going to read it to you now." He took the folded sheets of paper out of his pocket and shared their father's last words with them.

__

My children, 

I find myself on the edge of a great cliff, looking down at the ruin I have made of my life. Some few great sins are unpardonable, suicide among them; in my heart I have considered them one by one and this one last of all. A sin of the heart is a sin of the hand and having committed to this one I do not have the strength to back away, to continue to fight what I have become. I must go forward into whatever dark peace I can make with myself.

I do not go gladly, nor am I afraid. Everything I have done and failed to do has brought me here; this is the one decision I still have the power to make. But if my life is a black ruin, still it has points of light, and they shine brightest in the darkness. You seven are my points of light, the candles I should have followed on the path to truth. I love you all, and I regret only that I was not strong enough to keep to the way you marked for me. 

Nothing seems real to me, not the gun in my hand or the voice in my head. I dared question my God and now the only redemption I can find is through damnation; that God should know I love him enough to deny myself salvation. Perhaps this is the raving of a madman, or a fool, but it is my way of begging God's forgiveness. It is the only way I can think of. I leave you all to the mercy of Christ and the hope that you will live in Him as I could not. Pray for me, that the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions, and that in hell I may pay for my sins once and for all.

All my love,

Eric

"After he wrote the letter, he ended his life. I'm more sorry than I can say. Your father was a good man who did his best and he helped a lot of people, me included." They sat quietly, none of them looking at one another, and after a moment Robbie dropped the copy of the letter on the table and backed away. He was nearly out of the room when the door opened and Lucy came in. There was a radiant confidence to her he had never seen before, as if in the course of a few hours she had learned something about herself and she liked it.

It gave Robbie hope, seeing her like that; he thought that some day, everything just might be going to be all right. The Camdens were his family, now, and he was proud of them. He was proud of how strong they were, how they always tried to do what was right even if it hurt. How they fought for each other. How they were smart enough not to make their parents' mistakes, to substitute duty for love. 

In the living room the twins had knocked some of the glass balls off the Christmas tree. Robbie got a roll of masking tape and taped them carefully back together, then helped each twin find a spot on the tree to hang them. It looked a little lopsided now, Annie's perfect tree. He took the silver and blue tinsel Lucy had bought, and the ugly plastic ornaments from the dollar store, and hung them on, too, disarranging the strands of perfectly popped corn coated in hairspray, the handmade paperchains. Annie's color scheme was ruined, but Sam and David clapped their hands in joy and Robbie smiled. Sometimes fighting to be perfect destroyed you. Sometimes peace was the best goal of all. 

__


End file.
